19 comments:

I didn't even consider paying attention to those girls' arms bending backwards. It's very interesting to study. John, do you think drawing in a realistic style helps? I'm doing your cartoon exercices but also realistic drawings as well. I would like to be skilled in different styles to get mine.

Since you asked, "Why does this third finger look longer than the others?" -- I think I actually know the answer, so I'll risk sounding like a big nerd. I heard this on a science podcast or somewhere like that. The length of your ring finger is directly related to the amount of testosterone you have. People with long third fingers are proven to be more physical, more competitive, and all that testosterone stuff. Crazy, huh?

I don't see what's so baffling about the backwards-bending. When it's locked all the way straight, it just has to go a little distance BEYOND straight, before it stops bending.

John, you asked yourself, can it be simplified and useful for cartooning? It reminds me of something in Richard Williams's Survival Guide. I think he's got a few pages in there on letting joints go in the wrong direction, "breaking bones," or whatever he calls it. Seems very useful.

Do you fear that some of the sources you're analyzing may be "enhanced," meaning altered (damaged), by Photoshop? Speaking as someone who works in Photoshop every day, I'd say nearly all the images you see in magazines are retouched/altered in at least some small way. The tabloid pictures are the notable exception, since we all want to see The Beautiful People's every flaw.

But the two photos you're analyzing here are definitely altered, and I think the arm bend might be exaggerated by whatever retouching was done. There might have been some detail in her shirt, maybe the pattern, that they wanted to hide, or her arm hid too much of the shirt in the original shot. Even if it isn't, I'd be really wary of some of these girls in the advertisements when studying the human body, a lot photo retouchers don't have an artistic eye or even a respect for basic proportions and human features. Their goal is to make it look shiny and appealing.

The most glaring example of this is all the shadows they burn onto the skin (the girl running) to try to add definition to the body, and often they put them in places that make no sense to me visually or biologically.

If your attention is focused on some combination of portrait drawing, caricatures, cartooning, and some combination of dangerous substances, you ought to look at Ralph Steadman's work (http://www.ralphsteadman.com/).

I took some anatomy classes a year ago and the backwards girl arm thing was explained. Girls arms have a bend in them that angles their forearms away from their body - girls supposedly evolved this so that their arms wouldn't smack into their wider hips when they were running away from sabertooth tigers.